By the time AMD unveils its "Volcanic Islands" GPU family in Q4-2013, the company will have pulled on with a single product stack for well over 20 months. A part of what kept AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series competitive over these months, apart from frequent price cuts, is its "Never Settle" game bundles, which give buyers of graphics cards from Radeon HD 7700 series and above, two to eight free game coupons, some of which are recently launched AAA titles that are $60 off market. AMD plans to launch the next edition of its Never Settle bundles with its next GPU family, which will be named "Never Settle Forever."

"Never Settle Forever" takes a different approach to game bundles than its predecessors, which gave buyers a predetermined set of freebies depending on which series of Radeon products, or what quantities they purchased. The new bundle lets buyers choose what games they want, broken down from three selections, probably tied to what series of graphics cards they purchase. "Radeon Rewards Bronze" lets you choose any one game from a selection of six, "Radeon Rewards Silver" lets you pick any two games from a slightly wider selection of eight games, and "Radeon Rewards Gold" lets you choose three games from a selection of nine. Buying a Radeon x700 series product gets you access to the Bronze selection, x800 series Silver, and x900 series Gold. The slide below shows an example of such a bundle, which could be implemented for current Radeon HD 7000 series. The selections could change with "Volcanic Islands," especially with all the talk about AMD roping in Battlefield 4 into its future bundles.

I can't believe they would add Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution, and Devil May Cry to separate gold from bronze. I don't know about DMC but Tomb Raider can be bought for less than $10 and the same goes for Hitman. On the other hand, I don't think Far Cry 3 has gone less than $29.99 yet and I don't recall Blood Dragon going less than $14.99.

Square Enix must be playing hardball. That's the only explanation I can think of.

I can't believe they would add Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution, and Devil May Cry to separate gold from bronze. I don't know about DMC but Tomb Raider can be bought for less than $10 and the same goes for Hitman. On the other hand, I don't think Far Cry 3 has gone less than $29.99 yet and I don't recall Blood Dragon going less than $14.99.

Square Enix must be playing hardball. That's the only explanation I can think of.

Indeed.

Click to expand...

I guess this is still the 'old' list, just to give an example how the new tier system works. Since they already confirmed that Battlefield 4 will be a bundled game for the 9000 series.

Considering what feels like an AMD "sell-off" of 7XXX series card at Egg and TigerD here in the States not sure why they are even showing bundles for the current inventory. I mean, when a nice Sapphire dual fan (100351SR) 7970 3GB w/Boost is $260 after code and rebate, would someone need more enticement?

This has me wondering what is coming from AMD's Hawaii Announcement/Tech day? All the talk circulates around "Hawaii chip(s)/ Enthusiast" as first one hinted for release at say ~$600, and then the scuttlebutt is not till at best November. Although, this "sell-off" makes more of a case that perhaps "mainstream parts" aren't far off. Could AMD just drop a bombshell and release mainstream parts right at the start of October?